"In the Bible, the ones who were most certain about what they were doing were the ones who stoned the prophets."
-Bob Chell, 1996
The crowd raged outside. She could hear them screaming, like a hurricane playing through discordant panpipes. The strangest metaphors, she thought of...
She didn't do much of anything, just lean forward as she sat on the hard bed, eyes staring through the concrete walls. Perhaps she was praying. On one side, that would be a triumph; for the other, it would be a defeat. Minds on either side of those walls knew how convicted the woman was to have kept believing in what she did. She'd told her beliefs often to the guards, simply and with a conviction that echoed the Prophets. But each time, the guards laughed.
The door rattled a bit. The woman looked up through her hair into the eyes of the executioner. They looked deep into each other's eyes, as if they could read their souls by parsing through the shadows of the iris, the delicacy of the pupil. Both were solemn.
"You know you can turn back," he said.
A soft, husky alto, pure like the singer of the angelic choir: "How?"
"You've done far too much to live." The man was middle-aged, with a deep sadness in his eyes. He mourned for her, even as he was taught she only received what she should. Humanity glistened in him. "Yet if you repent, they will give you death quickly, without pain. You won't suffer."
"I am sorry, " the woman whispered, "but I cannot live a lie." She paused a moment. "I absolve you of my death."
The man grasped the bars that separated them. "You are living a lie! Everyone knows this, the whole state! Renounce your false beliefs and accept the truth!" He spoke with anger, but like a vine its seed was a deep hurt.
"Did they lie to you too?" she asked. "Do you believe?"
The man focused on the bar, letting her go into blurriness.
After a moment she looked down. "I'm sorry, I won't ask. I've told you what I live for, and what I'll now die for...Don't respond. They'll hear..."
"I'm sorry."
"I forgive you any wrong you could ever do to me."
She rose, and stood tall. A deep pit in her stomach welled, fear like a pinhead of a neutron star, heavier than Earth in a tiny speck. She turned around and put her hands behind her back to be shackled.
Steel, cool to the touch, bracelets and anklets. And she turned back, and began walking, leashed to the man who would offer her up to the cold embrace of Death. She would weep, but the tears were dry.
The crowd grew louder, louder, the storm no longer far but smashing at her mind. It came from the sunlight outside the heavily guarded door. Men with black death glistening in their hands. Death she might buy, if she tried hard enough, if she ran and attacked, if one was fool enough to kill the sacrifice before the allotted time. But the wouldn't, so she wouldn't try. She walked with dignity. It was all she owned now.
Outside, the light blinded her. She let herself be led to the pole, tied to it, loosely. She leant back against it, feeling the hard unfinished wood. Wood like this was what Jesus had been crucified on. How ironic...
Her vision adapted. One man walked forward, young with the grace of a lion but the mind of a vulture. He was the politician in charge here. Satan in the desert. He would be the last to tempt her. As he got closer, the noise of the crowd appeared inversely proportionate to his position, for they were silent as he was in her face.
"You disgust me," he hissed. Then he turned the mic on. "Prisoner Wellesly, do you retract your lying and pollution of this city's minds?"
Rachel looked up, stared straight into his eyes. She saw nothing. "I retract nothing."
"Do you repent," he sneered, "of your false views of Jesus Christ?"
"I stand as I have believed." She swallowed, tapping into the last reserves of courage she had. "I will never change my faith because of a pack of lying, disgusting hypocrites like you," she said plainly.
The crowd screamed at this. Some were jumping the gun - she felt the whish in the air as imperfect projectiles scattered around her. The suit leaned away, and began speaking to the crowd. Rachel did not follow this, but disfocused her eyes and thought:
May something change by my death - it is all I ask of the world.
She tuned in to the last words of the politician, who was now somewhat addressing her.
"By the laws of the Word of God, you are sentenced to be stoned until you are dead. May the Lord God have mercy on your soul." She could see his lips make out, "Burn in hell, bitch," as he heaved the first stone.
She felt a rock, smashing into her stomach. She bent, unable to double over because of the chains. Pain tore into her, but at least it was physical. She could at least ignore the pain of her heart breaking for the people who stoned her.
The crowd followed with their own stones, crying "In Jesus's Name, Amen."
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